1. Field
The present application generally relates to packet switch appliances, and, more particularly, to mapping a port on a packet switch appliance.
2. Related Art
In a packet-switching network, the transmission, routing, forwarding, and the like of messages between the terminals in the packet-switching network are broken into one or more packets. Associated with each terminal in the packet-switching network is a unique terminal address. Each of the packets of a message has a source terminal address, a destination terminal address, and a payload, which contains at least a portion of the message. The source terminal address is the terminal address of the source terminal of the packet. The destination terminal address is the terminal address of the destination terminal of the packet. Further, each of the packets of a message may take different paths to the destination terminal, depending on the availability of communication channels, and may arrive at different times. The complete message is reassembled from the packets of the message at the destination terminal. One skilled in the art commonly refers to the source terminal address and the destination terminal address as the source address and the destination address, respectively.
Packet switch appliances can be used to forward packets in the packet-switching network. Packet switch appliances have one or more network ports connected to the packet-switching network. The network port of a packet switch appliance can include a filter, which either drops or forwards packets. A conventional filter typically has only a single condition, which is used to determine whether a packet is to be dropped or forwarded.